Lest we forget, today is the 12th anniversary of the day the world changed. Indeed, a quick look at the news and it’s hard to find any news stories that aren’t in some way linked to the attacks of 9-11. Crippling government debt, instability in the Middle-East, drone wars, the quest for energy security, Quebec’s intolerance for religious symbols … all have roots in those dreadful attacks.

For a moment, though, there might be a chance of peace in the Middle East, or at least less chance the West will get sucked into a roiling civil war in Syria. Events moved quickly yesterday, culminating in a speech by President Barack Obama that said the U.S. war machine was standing down until efforts at a political settlement have been exhausted. Now the onus is on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to find a way to turn over stockpiles of chemical weapons while not losing ground to the rebels in the two-year-old civil war.

Assad got some mixed news overnight when the United Nations issued a report saying that Syrian government forces had massacred civilians, bombed hospitals and committed other war crimes in widespread attacks to recapture territory from rebels this year. But the same report could not categorically state that Assad’s forces had been responsible for using chemical weapons, furthering the rather weird conundrum of this war: it doesn’t matter how many you kill, just how you killed them.

Back home in Canada, the Harper government is readying to prorogue Parliament on Friday, with plans emerging for an Oct. 21 return, two weeks before the Conservatives hold their party’s rescheduled policy convention in Calgary.

Speaking of taking an extended summer holiday, B.C. Premier Christy Clark plans to “forego” the optional fall sitting of the legislature in order to get more work done. “There are two ways you can go about running government. One of them is to close yourself off in Victoria, figure out what the legislation is going to look like and impose it on people without talking to them about it… I’m not going to be that kind of premier.”

There’ll be no such rest for the wicked in Quebec City, where MNAs will soon be debating the PQ’s new values charter, which has succeeded in getting conservatives and liberals up in arms. All three federal party leaders have denounced the Pauline Marois government’s secular edict, a rare trifecta in today’s politics, with each leader trying to outdo the others in feigned moral indignation.

Despite the looming constitutional battles with Quebec over its rights to make its own rules, the Canadian dollar didn’t suffer. Indeed, the loonie hit a three-week high yesterday.

Albetra’s Health Minister Fred Horne announced a massive overhaul of Alberta Health Services’ leadership on Tuesday, with the AHS’s 80-plus vice presidents being chopped to just 10. Five have already been fired and dozens more are being readied for retirement or the rather Orwellian-sounding “reprofiling.” Horne said: “Our effort will be to try to decrease the number of administrative people as much as possible. We have heard a lot of criticism over the years about the weight of bureaucracy in AHS…. We have to make this a much more compliant, effective, and vigorous organization.”

In some worrisome news, Christopher Peloso, the husband of veteran Ontario politician George Smitherman, has been missing since Monday, and police say they are concerned for his safety. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-1300.

The Charbonneau Commission continues its probe into Quebec’s construction industry.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada releases a third Safety Advisory Letter and provides a brief update on the ongoing investigation into the Lac-Megantic, Que., rail disaster.

In Featured Opinion this morning:

Justin Trudeau is an enigma to pollsters: People like him, they trust him — but they still think Stephen Harper has the edge in competence. Maybe, writes Don Lenihan, the polls are pointing to a shift in Canadians’ thinking on leadership, away from controlling ‘master strategists’ like Harper and toward more cooperative, collaborative types — like Trudeau, the improv politician.

It’s been a busy 24 hours on the Syria file, so let’s get started. First, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg argues that the recent 11th-hour push for a political settlement that would forestall an American attack is doomed to fail, since Assad would be certain to spin out the process of ‘handing over’ his chemical weapons for months, even years.

Next, an astounding article from David Kenner at Foreign Policy on how the pro-Assad online media made common cause with American right-wing pundits and allowed Assad to beat Obama at the spin game before the president had even gotten started.

For all the giddy talk about marijuana decriminalization in the wake of Justin Trudeau’s pot-smoking confession, we’re still nowhere near having an adult debate about how we treat addiction in this country, writes Devon Black.

Finally, trade specialists Peter Burn and Peter Harder applaud the prime minister’s recent shift to a more diplomatic tone on Keystone XL and suggest that Harper may have found a way past President Obama’s reluctance.

Why does Switzerland enjoy such low youth unemployment levels, which hover at about 3 per cent? Apprenticeships. About 70 per cent of teenagers in that country split time each week between a workplace, a sector organization, and school. The result is an enviable talent pipeline of young professionals that fuels renewal. By contrast, youth unemployment in North America tops 15 per cent.

Finally, the Chinese might just be sitting on the greatest energy boom of the 21st century — panda poop. We kid you not. Some microbe in the guts of panda that is responsible for turning bamboo into carbohydrates might just hold the key to turning all sorts of previously unusable organic material into a vast new source of energy.